This application claims the priority of Korean Patent Application No 2001-61643, filed Oct. 6, 2001 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an emotion synthesizing apparatus, and more particularly, to a nervous system-based emotion synthesizing apparatus which enables an emotion of a human type robot (hereinafter, referred to as “humanoid”) to be synthesized in a manner similar to that of a human using a nervous system adjusting mechanism of a human body according to the human emotion
2. Description of the Related Art
An emotion synthesis largely consists of two processes, i.e., a generation of an emotion process and an expression of an emotion process. The emotion generation refers to a process in which an emotion of a human is changed from one state to another with respect to an external stimulation. The expression of the emotion refers to the form of the external expressive actions or a series of change modes with respect to each emotion state. Also, an emotion synthesizer refers to an artificial apparatus for implementing such an emotion synthesis.
In general, in order to actually implement a humanoid, the humanoid must be able to behave itself emotionally, which requires an emotion synthesizer. In particular, in order to ensure that an emotional interaction between a humanoid and a human is performed more naturally in such a manner that the humanoid resembles the human action more closely, an emotion synthesis of the same type as that of an emotion response mechanism of a human will be applied to the humanoid.
However, as known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,367,454 issued in Nov. 22, 1994 to Kawamoto et al, entitled “INTERACTIVE MAN-MACHINE INTERFACE FOR SIMULATING HUMAN EMOTIONS”, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,732,232 issued in Mar. 24, 1998 to Brush II et al., entitled “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR DIRECTING THE EXPRESSION OF EMOTION FOR A GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE”, etc., emotion synthesizing methods used in a conventional robot have been carried out only by optionally designed rules irrespective of an actual emotion response mechanism of a human body. Accordingly, as long as an emotional behavior of a humanoid does not conform to a response mechanism of the autonomic nervous system of a human, there is a limitation on that the humanoid does not closely resemble a human.